Slow Down and Do It Write

Self-publishing gets a bad name when indie authors fail to do the work. I received an email from a colleague announcing publication of a new book, available to buy. Here’s the excited headline:

BEWTEEN NEWSETTERS ANNOUNCEMENTS

Two misspellings in the heading of the announcement. I assume this person was excited, and/or in a hurry. Should I ignore the typos in the press release headline and buy the book anyway? Does it matter that much?

Yeah, sorry, it does. If I’m interviewing you for a job, and you show up with lettuce in your teeth, I’m going to notice. It’s the same with writing.

Unfortunately, there’s so much competition out there. To be noticed, and read, you have to make sure you take the time to make your work, or the publicity announcements, as pristine and compelling as possible. Many publicists ask me to read and review books, and I get them for free. Plus I have my own reading and writing to do, groceries to buy, a life to maintain. Like you, I have to make decisions about how to spend my time and mental energy.

There’s only so much. A debut book is iffy anyway. A debut book with questionable publicity is even less likely to win a spot on my reading list.

You know how sometimes you’ll bring a well-polished chapter to your critique group, and you think the critique is going to go smoothly because the chapter’s so ace? And then you get there and your colleagues find a bunch of mistakes? You know what happened: the writer became wordblind. Just like the guy who’s been out in the snow too long without his Polarized shades, we get to a point with our own writing that we don’t see it anymore.

Don’t let this happen to you. Take an extra 30 minutes and have a friend check your eblast before you hit “send.”

Have you ever been humbled by wordblindness? Are there any in this post I should know about?